


afraid

by artificialmelody



Series: feelings are chemicals [3]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, College AU, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian AU, Meeting the Parents, feelings are chemicals!verse, tw homophobia, tw slurs against lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 14:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18801982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artificialmelody/pseuds/artificialmelody
Summary: Plastique and Ariel couldn't be happier, their love was a cherry blossom in a warm spring afternoon: flourishing and flourishing. It flourished and flourished, until somehow challenging nature thorns started to grow in the twigs. It was time to meet Plastique’s parents, that thing itself made Ariel go crazy.





	afraid

**Author's Note:**

> tw for: homophobia, slurs against lesbians

_Me:_ _  
_ _I can’t do this, I’m not going._

Ariel sighed, in the middle of her heavy tears as she typed the short sentence and threw her phone away in the bed - she was so messed up that she didn’t care if it was going to break or anything. That simple message revealed a lot of fear. She didn’t even care about what Vanessa - her best friend - would say. Vanije wasn’t the kind of girl who judged, but she knew she was persistent and would try to convince her at every cost.

Well, unfortunately her phone didn’t break, because it wouldn’t stop beeping. This time it wasn’t Vanessa, but her girlfriend, probably very worried about her. The same girlfriend she was going to let down, and who planned that whole night for them, who was the sweetest thing in the world. Ariel being such a coward probably hurt Plastique, and while Ariel had no sensibility when hurting other people, hurting her girlfriend made her want to punch herself in the face.

 _Princess plastique_ 🎀✨💞: _  
_ _C’mon Ariel… I already said I’m sorry_

_I know my parents are scary but please… You’re really making me sad by ignoring my texts_

_...I love you_

_If they ever hurt you I swear I’ll fight, you know I’d do anything for you babyyyyy_

_Just… Please_

_Ariel?_

_We can eat pizza at my place if you want, cancel all this stuff, I was excited and planned it with my heart but… I really care about you, just please answer my texts_

_You don’t need to go if you don’t want to_

_Guess I’ll have dinner alone with my parents then._

_I really love you :( please don’t give up on me, on us… We’ve come so far_

  
They’ve come so far… It was true. Ariel used to be very negative, she used to not be in touch with her feelings - hiding them, just as she was doing right now - and Plastique caught her attention since the first minute she saw her walking in the hallways of the Fashion Institute of Technology. They shared a very boring class in the course they were doing, and Plastique was the only thing that made her attend that class without fail.

It didn’t take long until they started flirting and having a fling. But it never was more than a fling because Ariel had ugly actions - pretty on the outside, ugly on the inside - that made her sad. When she saw that girl that gave her palpitations in the heart get away from her, she knew she needed to change, that she needed to stop being such a coward. She did it for Plastique, and for herself, and it worked: their love now was a cherry blossom in a warm spring afternoon.

It flourished and flourished, until somehow challenging nature thorns started to grow in the twigs. It was time to meet Plastique’s parents, that thing itself made Ariel go crazy. They both came from wealthy families, but Ariel’s was more liberal than anything. They never minded their daughter liking girls - her mother was biseuxal, actually - and were the kind of bohemian rich family; traditionality was a thing she never knew. She liked that, that her mom was the boss and that her dad was her business partner, that they were a team, that they raised Ariel and incentives her to choose the path she wanted in her life - and ironically, to match her uncertain last name, she chose fashion.  

Her surname was Versace, but she didn’t have a connection with the actual Versace family at all - what everyone mistook. She heard from her parents that her dad was a very distant bastard cousin from one of the Versaces and that was they preferred to have the name - it was pretty fancy after all. But her family’s wealth was concentrated on her parents company - that obviously didn’t take the Versace name, but used ‘’Neel’’ instead. That was her mom’s name.

Plastique’s family was a traditional family. The Edwards were pretty reserved, and if Plastique was shy, quiet, and polite nowadays it was because of the many etiquette classes she told Ariel her parents made her do. They weren’t very happy with her studying Fashion - they wanted the perfect Patricia Edwards to be a doctor or something - and Ariel was sure they would explode if they knew she was a lesbian.

It seemed like Plastique knew it too, because she told her parents Ariel was a boy. That was the reason she was a mess in first place; if meeting Ariel’s parents was already stressing, now it was impossible. She got to control herself thanks to Vanessa to meet her parents, and to find the perfect dress - Ariel’s dresses were ‘’too slutty’’ for Plastique’s parents fancy noses, but now all the control she had was falling apart.

Ariel just wanted to run away.

 _Vanije_ 👯♀️:

_Bitch, put yourself together! I’ll be there in a minute, I love you_

Well, she couldn’t, because nothing would stop Vanessa now. She knew the girl since they were dumb middle school girls, she knew she wouldn’t give up easily. Neither would Ariel.

Vanessa Vanije Matteo was what you called the most persuasive person in the world. She entered Ariel’s apartment determined, like solving Ariel’s mess depended on her life. Ariel cursed herself for giving her extra keys. Great, now it cost her peace and safe crying space. Vanije was like hurricane in her speech; she talked so fast that Ariel could swear she almost got thrown to the other side of the room.

‘’Bitch I’m here, get out of this bed right now! I’m here to-’’

As a defense mechanism to avoid that, she began to sing. She always sang when she was nervous or just trying to shake off the bad feelings, she knew that would distract Vanessa - and herself.

 _‘’_ _Bitch, I'm here to fuck you up,’’_ Ariel sang, trying to clean up her tears and make some fun. _‘’Wanna make your bottle pop, ooh nah’’_

‘’Ariel, my hoe, this isn’t time for Charli, you know how much I love her but I’m being serious-’’

 _‘’I'm 'bout to drop!’’_ Ariel yelled in Vanessa’s ears. _‘’Looking like wow.’’_   
  
Vanessa sighed: ‘’Are you really doing this, bitch? Are you testing me?’’

_‘’We spending 'cause we got this.’’_

Vanessa rolled her eyes in redemption to Ariel’s loudly yelling: ‘’ _These dollars all in my pockets’’_

 _‘’I'm like a diamond in the sky, so high.’’_   
  
And they laughed, that was enough to make Ariel’s rough heart warmer, and less worried with everything and anything. There was a time where it was all laughs, no worries, just a warm friendship. Three years ago, when they were still in high school, Trophy came out and it automatically became the duo’s song to jam to. Ariel had lost the count of how many times they danced to it electrically at multiple parties.

But it was time for the laughs to go away, and the tears to take place. Ariel knew Vanije was persuasive, but she also felt so comfortable venting to her. She sobbed her heart out telling how much she loved Plastique, that her parents thought Ariel was a boy and when they found out the truth she would never see Plastique again. Even if they accepted her as a lesbian - which was hard - they would think their daughter was too good for her…

‘’Look at me.’’ Vanessa cleaned the black trails of mascara on Ariel’s face; it was dramatic - like she was a movie star.

‘’I can’t-’’

Her phone beeped again:

 _Princess plastique_ 🎀✨💞:

_Ariel I swear to god, they are waiting for you, they are excited to meet you_

A billion of angry replies passed on Ariel’s mind.

 _Me:_ _  
_ _Oh are they excited to meet me Patricia? Or are they excited to meet Ariel Versace the heterosexual boy?_

 _Princess plastique_ 🎀✨💞:  
_Hey you have all the right to be angry baby. Yes I know I screwed up, but I’m willing to tell them, we’ve got this… It’s all about our love. if hey ever hurt you I swear to god I’ll hurt them back._

 _Me:_  
_But dolly, you are baby you can’t hurt a fly_

 _Princess plastique_ 🎀✨💞  
_For you I would kill a lot of flies >:( _

_No jk I wouldn’t kill the poor things :(, but I’d def fight my shitty parents_

Ariel smiled to the phone, Vanessa placed a hand on her shoulder: ‘’You know she loves you, you love her. Are you going to stay here and cry? Watch a dumb girl movie with your best friend and eat more pizza than your diet allows?’’

It was one of Vanessa’s pep talks, and they always made Ariel laugh hard.

‘’...Or are you going to fight for her? Fight for Miss Patricia, she loves you! I’ve known you for an annoying amount of time, and I know Ariel motherfucking Versace doesn’t give up on anything!’’

It was true, Ariel would never give up on the girl who made her heart warm, or held her hand when she felt Ariel was scared - Ariel would never say she was, but Plastique knew. They would fight it together, she was Ariel, Versace or Neel. Her family never gave up, she would never give up… Now she had a face to redo, and a Vanije in the room putting on their old high school playlist.

‘’Let’s go lesbians’’

[...]

Looking flawless was a matter that Ariel mastered easily, so in a few minutes she looked like a goddess. Her white turtleneck dress wasn’t that short, and her makeup skills made her go from crying mess to dressed to impress. In theory she was constantly trying to remember herself - now in Vanessa’s voice - that she was enough, and that she and Plastique had this. But in practice she was tempted to start biting her nails - even if she just painted them.

The drive to the restaurant was chaotic for the very least to be said. Ariel wasn’t the best driver in the world - her parents surely were way too liberal, they gave her a car even if she was a disaster driving that - and now that she was nervous she was sure that she would have her car crashed and die - in fact, she almost did. What was she doing again when she was taking the driving lessons from her family’s chauffeur? Oh yeah, she remembered: she was reading fashion magazines instead, but in her defense if that car was a dress she would one hundred percent know how to make that cute with sneakers instead of heels.

With no car crashings - for her luck - and an impression eating fast timing, Ariel was in the restaurant. One of the fanciest restaurants of New York, the pressure was high. Plastique’s parents were really invested in knowing who her daughter was dating. Ariel went there before, so it wasn’t a problem for her; she liked the atmosphere of fancy restaurants a lot. She was scared, walking through the tables like a small fish in an ocean full of sharks - until she found the table of sharks she looked for so much.

Plastique’s parents were for the very least, classy, in an old school way - her dad wore a monocle, a monocle for world’s sake. Her mom had the biggest pearl necklace Ariel had ever seen, and a big beauty queen blonde her that was a big contrast with her bright blue eyes. She imagined them to be serious and rigid, Plastique’s dad surely seemed to be, but her mom talked loudly and witty about something - she seemed to be such a fun figure.

Ariel stopped observing, and in five steps that seemed to be five steps to her death, she shuttered a bunch of words she didn’t even processed right: ‘’G-goodnight’’

Plastique smiled in surprise to see her girlfriend, and blinked to her. Suddenly Ariel remembered why she had to do everything right: she would fight for her girl, you could be sure of that.

‘’Oh who’s this beauty darling?’’ Alyssa turned her head to Ariel with a friendly look. ‘’Aren’t you the bastard Versace children? I know your dad from college, honey we used to smoke pot together.’’

Plastique’s dad, an old serious Vietnamese man looked at Alyssa with the coldest look.

‘’What?! It was in college, stop being so grumpy’’

‘’Who are you? Are you Patricia’s friend? We were waiting for her boyfriend Ariel, we didn’t knew her friend was coming too.’’ Her dad split the words on Ariel’s face harshly, but it didn’t take Ariel down.

‘’In fact…’’ She smiled ‘’I’m Ariel, nice to meet you’’

The old man seemed like he was having a stroke; he literally choked on his drink with Ariel’s speech, while Alyssa had a kind of playful glow in her eyes. Plastique had a worried semblance, looking at her parents and to Ariel awkwardly.

‘’B-baby why don’t you sit?’’ Plastique shuttered.

‘’Baby? Are you kidding me, Patricia?’’ her dad yelled as Ariel took a seat beside Plastique.

‘’Look my dear, let the girl explain herself,’’ Alyssa intervened. ‘’Hi Ariel, we are excited to meet you aren’t we?’’

‘’...I’m not.’’ her dad looked at Ariel like he wanted to kill her. ‘’I’m not okay with the fact my daughter is a dyke, I’m sorry Alyssa but this won’t happen.’

‘’Dad, we didn’t even order…’’ Plastique seemed like she wanted to cry.

Damn, damn, damn. Ariel just wanted to hold her, she held her hand under the table, Plastique’s weak fingers squeezing Ariel’s in a cry for comfort. Ariel rubbed her thumb on Plastique’s hand, telling her everything was okay as they always did, it was such an intimate gesture in the middle of that whole hurricane.

She wanted the peace, the love, the healing they always felt when they were together. That moment was one thing, chaotic, and the poor fragile Plastique was in the middle of that. If she could, she would… She would fight her dad, but Ariel was paralyzed, she didn’t know how to react, just to hold Plastique’s hand as strong as she could.

‘’Do you even listen to yourself, Patricia? We raised you to be our heir, our treasure, you would marry a rich man and be an influential woman in high society… And if you marry… This girl, what will they think of you? She’s a bastard, and a girl! Do you think high society will accept you? Are you a lesbian now? Do you think a lesbian has success in her life?’’

Tears started to go down Plastique’s face. No, no, no… Ariel wanted to play with her hair until she calmed down, to kiss her forehead and make her the chamomile tea she knew she enjoyed that so much. Ariel wanted to be there for her, to fall asleep with her in her arms, the world would be a safe place. But now she could only rub her thumb on Plastique’s hand trying to give her the bare minimum of comfort she could at that moment.

‘’Well I am, but you never listened to me did you dad? Did you ever pay attention? And this girl here is the best thing that ever happened to me. She’s kind, she’s lovely, she has personality, and her arms are safer than any of your expensive security equipment could be. I love her!’’

‘’You don’t love her, we don’t approve this!’’

‘’I do, look at us, we are in love.’’ Plastique raised Ariel’s hand holding hers over the table, now it was visible - not just to her parents, but the whole restaurant was looking at them.

‘’Darling…’’

‘’Don’t interrupt me, Alyssa… Well, you can live without our money and with… this.’’ He looked at Ariel with the most disgusted face. ‘’Or fucking be normal and end this lesbian bullshit, right now’’

Violently crying, Plastique left the table and the restaurant, like a princess running away from her abusive, sick, and homophobic tower. Ariel’s first instinct was to go find her, outside the restaurant, sitting by the fountain, crying her soul out. She looked so weak, unprotected, now it was the right time to hold her. Ariel loved that girl so much… Usually, she made people cry, but seeing Plastique cry was like experiencing a thunderstorm.

‘’Baby…’’ she held her, she held her as tightly as she ever had Plastique sobbed even more. ‘’Shh, shh, I’m here, it’s okay.’’ She kissed her forehead.

‘’Don’t look at me I’m pathetic, I’m so sorry… This was such a dumb idea… I just thought they would change, that they loved me.’’

‘’No it wasn’t, you’re perfect Patricia, they are bullshit. Fuck it if they disown you, I have money, I can afford a pretty comfortable life for both of us baby, my parents would love you… God they would never stop talking about you, in fact I think they would like you more than they like me.‘’

‘’I don’t wanna be a weight for you Ariel, I’m such a failure…’’

‘’No you aren’t’’ Alyssa’s voice was irreplaceable. ‘’My daughter is everything but a failure, and I know that since I saw her stupid cute face after long hours of labor.’’

‘’Mom, what are you doing here?’’ Plastique asked surprised, cleaning her tears.

‘’Do you think I was going to support your father on his bullshit?’’

‘’Well…’’

“Sweetheart, I love you, and I’m sure Miss Thing here is as lovely as she seems. I see that in the way she looks at you, in the way she holds your hand, calms you down…’’ Alyssa looked at them fondly ‘’I always knew you were gay, since you spied the neighbor because she went to a preparatory school and that skirts were… Well…’’

Plastique blushed, Alyssa placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘’And it’s okay, I’m gonna change his mind I promise, I always do.’’

This fond moment meant so much for Ariel because she saw Plastique smile again. Her radiant smile was more precious than the diamond necklace she wore, more beautiful than all her dresses put together - Plastique was art, the most beautiful thing in the world, nothing could be ever compared. Ariel wondered if she knew how beautiful she was, how she made her heart skip a bit every time she smiled, how much everything she did meant for her.

So enamored, they were hugging each other. After all they got this, Plastique wasn’t lying at all - they were stronger with that, even if they didn’t have Alyssa’s support, they would get over this. Because they were so powerful, their love was a rose with a lot of thorns, but that thorns made them stronger to the world. Alyssa gave her a weird comfortable feeling, holding Ariel’s hands and looking directly to her eyes:  
  
‘’You have my blessing, please take good care of her, she’s so fragile...’’

‘’I’m not a fragile thing needing to be protected!’’ Plastique crossed her arms.

‘’Baby I would love to agree with you but last week you cried when I showed you a kitty video.’’

‘’That kitty was so cute! It made me emotional.’’ Plastique complained ‘’I’m not fragile hmph’’

‘’Okay sweetheart you aren’t’’ Alyssa patted her head.

‘’Thank you mom.’’

‘’I’m lying, she’s such a baby and if you hurt her I’ll kill you bitch.’’

‘’Mom!’’ Plastique seemed mad ‘’Ariel don’t listen to her.’’

‘’You look so cute when you’re grumpy princess.’’

‘’No, not cute. Dangerous. I’m dangerous.’’ Plastique pouted.

Ariel kissed her pout: ‘’A dangerous cutie’’

To make Ariel’s heart burst into an explosion one more time, Plastique smiled, and she smiled back kissing her forehead. They didn’t even care if they were in front of Alyssa, but they got the woman sobbing.

‘’I can’t with you two, I’m so happy for you, truly.’’ Alyssa smiled to the fond moment ‘’...Now I have to get in again, what are you doing tonight?’’ she sighed.

‘’I promised Miss Versace some pizza at my place if it all went wrong, I guess we are watching a movie too. I don’t know.’’

‘’Yes babe Mean Girls and cuddle.’’ Ariel blinked.

Alyssa looked at both sides: ‘’Can I go with you? I don’t wanna bear Mr. Edwards and his bullshit tonight, to be fair honest I love him, but sometimes…’’

‘’Yes mom of course!’’ Plastique seemed electric as a child on a playground. ‘’It will be so fun, I didn’t see it coming, I know a very good pizza place. We can get delivery-’’

‘’Shhh Patricia, I know you’re excited’’ Alyssa patted her head. ‘’I hope I’m not third wheeling, and I want your hands in a place I can see them.’’

Plastique blushed so hard, Ariel cracked and couldn’t stop laughing. ‘’Bold of you to think you will even see them.’’

‘’Ariel! No mom isn’t true don’t worry.’’

‘’Patricia it’s okay people fuck, how do you think you were born?’’

Now Plastique was red as Alyssa’s lipstick.

And the following events were full of fond laughter and blushed cheeks - full of family. Plastique fell asleep in Ariel’s arms, and even in the dark she could swear she was the cutest thing in the world. Alyssa could too, she looked at them like she just saw the same kitty video that made Plastique cry from joy.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm baaaaaaack back back back again  
> I have to stop getting my heart broken all the time and randomly stopping writing, but now I'm back  
> I was ''artificialmai'' and now I have a brand new pen name, so call me melody from now on (it is because of ''melody lane'' the bar in jennifer's body)  
> I hope you like this fic, it's part of a series so I recommend you to read the other works of this verse if ya want!  
> My writing tumblr is @artificiallymelody and my main is still @aquariasbaby, as always, feel free to send something!  
> And special thanks to @ artificialmeggie for being the amazing beta she is <3


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